


Safe with me

by thestoriesthatiwrite



Category: Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M, Set during Bitter of Tongue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestoriesthatiwrite/pseuds/thestoriesthatiwrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Simon and Isabelle escape Faerieland. Mark gets his punishment. This story takes place after his punishment is over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe with me

**Author's Note:**

> I felt inspired to write a little piece about Mark and Kieran based on Bitter of Tongue, since I have a feeling I will be shipping them hard in the coming years.

He could hear the voices speak clearly, but the words simply didn’t register. He could feel the tremor of the ground beneath him caused by heavy boots marking the earth, but he did not care. He was numb. Numbed by the pain on his back. He was sure the red marks of the lashes stood out in stark contrast to his pale skin. He heard laughter and knew it was aimed at him. With his ear flat against the hard ground he felt the vibrations telling him someone was approaching. Even if he was scared enough to flee, his body would not be able to handle it. Maybe someone had finally come to kill him.  
He closed his eyes and pricked up his ears.  
The footsteps came to a hold, followed by an all too familiar sigh. “Sit up.” Kieran said. Mark tried to gather the strength to lift himself up, but failed. “Sit up.” Kieran ordered. His second attempt was more successful. Though the movement was met with a sting of pain going up his spine. Kieran sighed again. “This is going to hurt.” He told him and Mark knew it would. Not because Faeries didn’t lie, but because he had been through this before. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He felt coldness on his skin and bit his lip hard. Too hard, since he could taste the copper flavour of blood on his tongue. Kieran did not speak as he applied the cream, but the silence might have hurt Mark more than the pain of the lashes and cream combined. Kieran was the only faerie Mark trusted, and with that the only one he probably considered a friend. Though Mark wasn’t sure they were friends anymore. When the cold touch on his skin had stopped, he heard another sigh. “What were you thinking?” Kieran wondered out loud. “Why would you give any of them, least of all Gwyn, more reasons to hate you?” Kieran appeared in front of him and kneeled on the floor. He touched his cheeks to whip a few fallen tears away. “I don’t understand. You were just gaining their trust and now you can start all over. And for what? Two shadowhunters that didn’t even come to take you back to their world.”

“I know them.” Mark said weakly.

“You knew them.” Kieran corrected him. “You said so yourself. The shadowhunters are not coming to get you. They do not care about you.”

“My family does.” Mark protested.

“We are you family now.” Kieran snapped at him. “And the sooner you get that into that thick skull of yours the better.” Kieran placed his hand under his chin and lifted it up. Mark didn’t want to lock eyes with him out of fear of seeing emotions displayed he’d rather not see. The Faerie wasn’t giving him much choice, however. “If something happens to me, you are as good as dead.” Kieran’s voice had softened, there wasn’t any anger in his eyes, just disappointment. “You are alive because of me. Do you understand that? But even I can only save you so many times.”

“I know.” Mark nodded. He was very well aware of that. Kieran was a prince, so his opinion outranked most. He had stopped Gwyn the very first time Mark had overstep the line from killing him and had stayed by his side since. He still didn’t understand completely why Kieran had saved him but life in the Wild Hunt was easier for him because of it.

“Is it a pride thing?” He asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Mark answered. He could no longer sit up straight and went back to laying on his side. Kieran kindly placed his arm in his neck to take the pressure of his back and shoulder. “I just wanted to save them. I just wanted to feel like I was still a shadowhunter.” His life in the Wild Hunt was so very different from the life he led in Los Angeles.

“You’re not though” Kieran said tactless. Faeries had no use for tact after all. “They don’t think of you as one.”

“But I’m not a Faerie either.” Mark looked at Kieran, his features so elegant, so graceful. “I belong neither here nor there.” As much as he wanted to go home, Simon’s message made him realise that it might never happen, but he wasn’t sure he wanted this to become his home either. Forever part of the Wild Hunt.

“You belong with the Hunt.” Kieran looked at him. “You have eaten our food, learned our ways and seen the mountain of Dylrians. This is where you belong, with us.” The faerie smiled at him and turned his body towards him. His face inches away. “Stop running.”

Mark sighed in defeat. He already knew the outcome of this discussion and let’s just say he never won them. In the end Kieran was always right. The shadowhunters had abandoned him, and if he ever ran away from the Wild Hunt and made it into the human world, they would slaughter his family and make him watch as a punishment. It was why even when Mark was close to going home, he never resisted his recapturing much. Maybe it was time to just give up and wait for his family to finally find a way to rescue him. “Guess, I’ll have to find a new way to entertain myself.” He tried to joke. Though the only thing it earn him was a flick of the finger to his forehead.

“Stupid boy.” Kieran remarked, though his words did not match the look in his eyes, nor the gentle tugging of Mark’s hair. “Whatever will I do with you.”

“Whatever you please, I’m sure.” Mark answered honestly. Kieran outranked him.

The remark however earned him a hearty laugh. “I will admit that having you around makes things less boring.” He looked at him again, his free hand brushing his broken lip. “You should try to get some sleep, give your muscles some rest.” The earlier assault had exhausted him, that he couldn’t deny. “It’ll fine. I’ll be right here. Nobody would dare come near you with me here.”

“That’s because you scare them.” He even scared him sometimes. “They wouldn’t dare cross you.”

“Well, I am the Prince.” Kieran reasoned. Mark closed his eyes, trying to focus on Kieran’s hand grazing his hair, instead of the burning sensation on his back. “Stay by my side, Mark and I will keep you safe.” He felt a movement next to him, the warmth of Kieran’s body coming closer.  Here he was safe, out of harm’s way and in the end being in this embrace was the closest thing to home Mark had. Whatever Kieran’s reason where for protecting him, he thanked the angels nonetheless. If he ever was to see his family again, Kieran would be his key to getting home.


End file.
